The Minnesota shooter allegedly researched several “people search” sites in an attempt to target his victims, highlighting the potential dangers of widely available personal data.
There is no allegedly, the dude was a total boomer and literally wrote out instructions on how to dox someone in his notebook which are shown in the federal complaint against him
Literally outlines which sites are free, which ones have free trials, etc
Like you you would think he would just use a text document or bookmarks or something
I mean this is shockingly easy to find. Literally his last point is “type name in ‘john doe’ in google search engine” and unless the person has a very common name or a strong online presence that alone will pull up tons of these sites
These sites are pretty gross and should probably have some kind of regulation. They ultimately are just compiling public records but they make things shockingly easy and are ultimately used for domestic abuse, stalking, and shit like swatting and doxxing more than any legitimate purpose. As others have said, maybe the fact that this has led to politicians being targeted will mean that regulation finally occurs but given the current climate and the fact that the targeted politicians were on the wrong team maybe not
Idk if I’m planning on murdering someone I’m not keeping it in digital form where who knows who or what is stealing/scraping it or using a back door or whatever. Deleting stuff off a computer can also be difficult with insane things being recovered off computers. I would have zero interest in linking anything illegal to anything digital in this day and age.
A text file encrypted with aes-256/gpg on a usb drive with a hidden veracrypt volume that also have a decoy encrypted veracrypt volume is essentially uncrackable even by state actors unless you give up the passphrases or use some dumbass passphrases that are easily guessed.
This is the kind of shit where if you have critical evidence on the drive they’ll hold you: there was a police sergeant in Philly who (probably) had child porn on his macbook. They couldn’t prove it becuase his drive was encrypted and he refused to give up the passphrase. He was held for four years on contempt charges and they finally gave up. He wasn’t even using an esoteric approach, he just had macos filevault turned on
The approach I described sidesteps that issue because it creates a decoy encrypted veracrypt for them to find and for you to give up. The hidden veracrypt with your salacious details is a volume that is created within the free space of the outer volume so it essentially undetectable unless you give it up and by design you give up the outer volume that shows innocuous data. Of course, having veracrypt at all invites suspicion of a secret volume but this puts you in the above spot: catching a few years with no real charges for refusing to give yourself up. Much better spot than catching charges for whatever crime (or being executed for political activism/journalism/etc)
Meanwhile this guys journals were immediately found and well documented for his federal complaint. You could just burn them I guess but then you no longer have all your data
Writing stuff down with pen and paper is an objectively better way to remember things then digital files, also way more secure unless you really, really know what you’re doing.
Well considering he chose to use a pyro-mechanical firearm, instead of things like social/political/legal/economical tools to accomplish his goal, seems to check out lol
There is no allegedly, the dude was a total boomer and literally wrote out instructions on how to dox someone in his notebook which are shown in the federal complaint against him
Literally outlines which sites are free, which ones have free trials, etc
Like you you would think he would just use a text document or bookmarks or something
I guess this is a good way to spread the techniques to others…
I mean this is shockingly easy to find. Literally his last point is “type name in ‘john doe’ in google search engine” and unless the person has a very common name or a strong online presence that alone will pull up tons of these sites
These sites are pretty gross and should probably have some kind of regulation. They ultimately are just compiling public records but they make things shockingly easy and are ultimately used for domestic abuse, stalking, and shit like swatting and doxxing more than any legitimate purpose. As others have said, maybe the fact that this has led to politicians being targeted will mean that regulation finally occurs but given the current climate and the fact that the targeted politicians were on the wrong team maybe not
Idk if I’m planning on murdering someone I’m not keeping it in digital form where who knows who or what is stealing/scraping it or using a back door or whatever. Deleting stuff off a computer can also be difficult with insane things being recovered off computers. I would have zero interest in linking anything illegal to anything digital in this day and age.
A text file encrypted with aes-256/gpg on a usb drive with a hidden veracrypt volume that also have a decoy encrypted veracrypt volume is essentially uncrackable even by state actors unless you give up the passphrases or use some dumbass passphrases that are easily guessed.
This is the kind of shit where if you have critical evidence on the drive they’ll hold you: there was a police sergeant in Philly who (probably) had child porn on his macbook. They couldn’t prove it becuase his drive was encrypted and he refused to give up the passphrase. He was held for four years on contempt charges and they finally gave up. He wasn’t even using an esoteric approach, he just had macos filevault turned on
The approach I described sidesteps that issue because it creates a decoy encrypted veracrypt for them to find and for you to give up. The hidden veracrypt with your salacious details is a volume that is created within the free space of the outer volume so it essentially undetectable unless you give it up and by design you give up the outer volume that shows innocuous data. Of course, having veracrypt at all invites suspicion of a secret volume but this puts you in the above spot: catching a few years with no real charges for refusing to give yourself up. Much better spot than catching charges for whatever crime (or being executed for political activism/journalism/etc)
Meanwhile this guys journals were immediately found and well documented for his federal complaint. You could just burn them I guess but then you no longer have all your data
Writing stuff down with pen and paper is an objectively better way to remember things then digital files, also way more secure unless you really, really know what you’re doing.
Well considering he chose to use a pyro-mechanical firearm, instead of things like social/political/legal/economical tools to accomplish his goal, seems to check out lol
Should’ve gone for the thermite, then at least we could call him a “hot” boomer.